I am with TC 100 %, don’t give me this “he’s not late” line of horseshit, that’s for losers. You same Mets fans who bitch and moan that Collins has some nerve calling out Tejeda are the same bunch who is spouting the Mets suck mantra. You can’t have it both ways folks.

I’m sure Collins made it known to Tejeda that it would be in his best interest to get to camp early to work with Daniel Murphy his news keystone partner. I don’t want to hear visa problems as the reason Tejada couldn’t get to camp early, take care of your shit on time Ruben. No excuses and to all of you comparing Collins to NY Giants coach Tom Coughlin and his insistence that if you’re on time your five minutes late, let’s hope TC gets the same results two championships in four years.

NEWS: Ike Davis Has a Slight Lung Infection

Word to Ike, lay off them Lucky Strikes they’re killers, switch to Newports the menthol will be soothing

What a great touch last night by SNY to show Gary Carter’s first game as a Met ( a game I attended), opening day 1985. That game brought back a flood of memories about the era in Mets history and Carter’s legacy as a NY Met.

I was at Madison Square Garden on the night of December 10th , 1984 watching the NY Rangers play the LA Kings, between periods I strolled down to the concourse to grab a beer (my drinking days) and call Sports Phone (once upon a time this great new service came out called SportsPhone known by its great jingle “get all the sports scores in-stan-leeee dial 976-1313) to get some out of town NHL and NBA scores (this was also my gambling days, oh and along with the beer in my hand and the phone receiver to my ear there was a cigarette dangling from the corner of my mouth, yes I’d indulged in all sorts of vice back in the day, that why I loved the 1970’s and 80’s) came a voice on the other end of the line telling me that the New York Mets have acquired Gary Carter from the Montreal Expos for Hubie Brooks, Mike Fitzgerald, Herm Winningham and Floyd Youmans. HOLLLLLLYYYYY SHIT!

As I made my way back up to Section 432, it seemed all the other degenerates checking scores and their bets, heard the Mets news as well as the Garden was buzzing. There was great debate amongst myself and my friends over this deal. At the time it looked like Frank Cashen gave up a King’s ransom for Carter. Brooks was coming off a nice season with 16HR and 73 RBI, Fitzgerald, Wininngham and Youmans were top prospects in what was at the time a fruitful Mets farm system, but hey we got Gary Carter, add him to Keith Hernandez and the two kids, Gooden and Strawberry and god damn, the Mets are going to kick some serious ass in 1984, and they did, going from 68-94 in 1983 to 90-72 in 1984 finishing 6 ½ games back of the division champion Chicago Cubs (somewhere in my basement is my florescent yellow CUBS BUSTERS t-shirt that had the bear cub in a circle with a red line through it, yeah baby THE MAGIC WAS BACK AT SHEA)

So many on the field memories, pop into my head when thinking of Gary Carter but so do many off the field ones as well.

I got married in 1986 (same year I dropped two bad habits, gambling and smoking, drinking would come ten years later) the last of four kids to leave the nice secure nest my parent had made for us. Most weeknights, I’d come from work have dinner with my parents (dinner always on the table when I got home, told you it tough leaving my happy habitat) and afterwards, head to the living room with my dad to watch Mets baseball. My mother, a woman surrounded by sons, nephews and cousins who were sports fanatics, a woman who washed more uniforms than any clubhouse person, never cared for sports, that is until I move out of the house. The sight of my old man sitting with no one to talk about the games with, she decided it was time to take up watching sports particularly Mets baseball. Not only did she start watching Mets games, she now wanted to go to Mets games, WHAT? “Ma, you want to go to Shea” “Oh yes, I want to go see Gary Carter” So we took her to see “her guy” Gary Carter.

I thought about that all the way on my commute home last night, then I listened to all the tributes for Carter and I really felt overwhelmed, Gary Carter was much more than a baseball player, he was as inspirational as anyone who has ever hit this city. To hear Keith Hernandez weep when talking about Carter was heartbreaking. Listening to Ron Darling speak of Carter you could tell he held him in such high regard. Then I heard Doc Gooden, who told the story of how Carter would come to the Smithers Institute where he was residing to combat his drug and alcohol addiction, on Sunday’s after home games to make sure Gooden was okay. Strawberry may have given Carter the best compliment anyone can give to another human being when he said that Carter “lived his life the way I wish I could have”.

Carter was at times mocked for his goody-goody ways, which some felt were phony but as they got to know him they found out his love of family, baseball and God was genuine. I found it stunning that those four players who played hard and partied even harder in their youth and would ridicule Carter for his clean living ways back then, now in their middle age wish they could have had the life that Gary Carter had. Don’t you wish we all could be remembered that way?

What is this? Positive Mets stories? And from all places the New York Post? Hey what the hell it’s Valentine’s Day right? A good day to tone down the Mets snark right?

Johan Santana is down in St. Lonesome and is determined to become a contributor to the team this coming season. Santana has not thrown off a mound yet, he may do that by the end of the week, but yesterday he was stretching out his arm by having a long toss catch with Terry Collins. According to Santana, he’s done with rehab and is now working on building arm strength and working on his mechanics and getting his delivery back to where it once was.

What makes me optimistic that Santana can come back is his intelligence on the mound, he may never get the velocity back but he’s clever enough and schooled enough in the art of pitching to make the adjustments needed to become a solid starting pitcher once again.

Ike is alright, or so he says. Ike Davis is in camp early as is Daniel Murphy as both had bad season ending injuries and both are trying to come back and build on what looked to be solid offensive seasons in 2011. Murphy has the added burden of working on his defense, and as we know Murph never shies away from working hard, oh yeah #ImWith28.

Terry Collins is a pragmatist; he sees the landscape of the NL East and knows that his team will have to play flawless baseball to keep up in this division. He also realizes that there is a lot peripheral bullshit surrounding this team and it’s his job to keep it on the periphery and focus on making the right pitch and the right time, get the big hit with men on base, and playing solid fundamental baseball. It’s a tough agenda but with a season of managing this team under his belt, Collins should be up for the task

I think I’m just about making my final landing from my Giants Super Bowl high to where I’m ready to concentrate on baseball. In fact I have to go to a meeting tonight to place my Babe Ruth team in a league for this coming season. What has me excited about the league we are about to join is we will play some of our games at the College of Staten Island field that was once home to the Staten Island Highlanders and we will play games in Brooklyn at the field at Bay 8th St where many of my childhood sports highs (ROCKNE football league championship as a 12 year old) and lows (getting a tooth knocked out with a forearm playing same league as a 13 year old).

As for our Amazin’ Mets well there finally is some Mets news to talk about so let’s take a look see shall we:

Story in today’s NY Times tells us something we all know, the Mets are under that old Sicilian curse “Fundsalow” thus Sandy Alderson and his troops have had to be creative with the nickels and dimes that are at their disposal. The real trick to see if Alderson can truly turn water into a microbrew when one or two of the starting pitchers go down with injury and he has to find help from outside. With his options limited and desire to leave the crown jewel arms on the farm we as Mets fans should start to follow the Atlantic League and some of the other Independent baseball leagues around the country as I wouldn’t be shocked it a Long Island Duck or two pitch in Flushing this season.

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

In regard to you buying the New York Mets and your response of “Who would want to own a sports team”? Let’s me just say “I WOULD! I WOULD!” problem is a lack of dead presidents to accomplish this. Now you sir are a man of considerable financial means of many billions of dollars, all you would have to do is donate about $1 or $1.2 billion of those tens of billions to me so I can buy the NY Mets, with all due respect your honor, Bill Gates and warren Buffet are wayyyyyyyyyyyyy ahead of you when it comes to philanthropic ventures, a move of this magnitude would most definitely raise your charitable profile.

What in the name of Joe Verbanic is going on in with the Bronx Bastards? First, Pee Wee Cashman’ wayward ways seemed to get out of hand as the trollop he has been stepping out on Mrs. Pee Wee with has gone into full fatal attraction mode and now we find out that the face of the YUCK network, Bob Lorenz, was sippin’ too much Old Grand Dad, got behind the wheel of his fine automobile and was pulled over by Connecticut’s Finest. Is this just the being of the end of the Highlander reign of terror?

My good buddy Ed “Rusty Jr.” Marcus over at The Real Dirty Mets has a very good column posted this morning on the patients Mets fans will have for the team this coming season. Ed asks the questions will fans show up at Citi Field, if the team gets off to a slow start will fans call for Terry Collins and Sandy Aldersons head and how much more cat calls will we hear from the stands of Citi Field for the Skill Sets to sell? All very good questions.

This off season has been as dormant of any positive Mets news in a long long time. The specter of the Madoff trustee law suit and the teams financial straits have overshadowed any baseball move made by the club as all the moves and non-moves have been money driven. That being said, I can’t wait until training camp opens as we can finally get back to discussing hitting, pitching and defense and hopefully some baseball related story lines.

The die hard “the Mets are in my blood” fan will come out to Citi Field no matter what this coming season brings. With all the talk of boycotts and protest and insurrection by a part of the fan base, let me say don’t count on me for support. Am I pissed off about the way the Skill Sets have run this franchise and besmirched the good name of the New York Mets? Oh hell yeah! Do I wish they were gone from their seat of power as owner of the team? Double oh hell yeah? But will I abandon my Mets fandom? Infinity hell no!

If Terry Collins can continue to move this team in the direction he has and improve on how they fundamentally play baseball, then this could be a very interesting season. Two major things have to happen for the Mets to play above all expectations this coming season, they must master the fundamentals of baseball and they have to stay healthy, those two aspects of the game will be the difference in whether the dormant Mets fan will come out to Citi Field or will stay home. The Mets do not have the raw talent to be a contender for a division or a wild card berth, but if they limit the mistakes on defense and on the bases along with staying healthy, especially the very fragile starting pitching, the Mets could be the big story of the 2012 baseball season.

If the Mets do become this out of the blue story ,no one in the fan base will give a rat’s ass about the owner. We care about the Skill Sets now because we’re bored and angry, bored because there hasn’t been anything baseball related to discuss thus we’ve started to turn on ourselves (just check out Twitter any afternoon) and angry because we want to have a team we can be proud to call ourselves fans of. What the Skill Sets have to worry about is that the die hards don’t become the minority among the fan base.

It will be tough to read any Mets news this week as NYC has turned its sports eye to this Sunday’s Super Bowl (with a squint at Madison Square Garden as Knicks fans await the firing of coach Mike D’Antoni and Mike Woodson taking over for the season) and the over saturation of information that will come out of Indianapolis all week. One of the more interesting aspects of this fountain of information is the two sports radio station in town going head to head on Radio Row.

WEPN has never made a dent in the ratings and as the Great Sports Pope, Mike Francesa likes to say, “Dey cum ta wawr wit pea shootas” .WEPN’s biggest problem is they can’t decide if they want to be national sports radio broadcasting in NYC or a hybrid National/Local station. To be honest here, I’ve kind of weaned my way off WFAN. I’ll listen to the station at work but when I’m in the car I’ll listen to Sirius/XM radio, mostly MLB Radio.

As much as I would love to listen to someone other than Francesa, when I tune into the Michael Kay Show it’s the sports talk equivalent to fingers nails on a chalk board. What make it worse is I really like Don LaGreca and I’ve always felt he was being wasted as a second banana on the Kay show.

When you look at the WEPN line up, it’s no wonder it gets miniscule ratings. Even though Mike and Mike is an ESPN infomercial, I kind of enjoy listening to them but again they are a National show which makes it more puzzling why they follow M & M with the totally unlistenable Colin Cowherd, again another National show. At 12 noon the station puts on its best effort of the day in airing Ryan Ruocco and Robin Lundburg. Ruocco and Lundburg are young and come with a fresher, hipper way of doing sports talk that is quite refreshing, the problem is they only get two hours of air time as at 2pm WEPN turns into old foggey radio with the Mike Lupica Show. Lupica has not been relevant on the New York sport scene in about 10 years when he was at least watching sporting events on television (stories were all around that Lupey never attended games he wrote about it seems he’s beneath siting in a press box) what line of thinking is going through WEPN program director Dave Roberts head that he feels an hour of Lupey is better radio than an extra hour of Ruocco and Lundberg?

Sure it’s a tough task to overtake WFAN in the ratings as they are the founding fathers of sports talk radio not just in NYC but the country but it can be done if you go out a get younger hosts who are social media savvy who can talk about multiple subjects instead of beating listeners to death with Rex Ryan coaching critiques and 1960’s Yankees retrospectives. WEPN is missing a great opportunity to reach hockey fans by not giving LaGreca a weekend hockey show especially with the station airing NY Rangers games. Same for doing an NBA show. I know Stephen (Screamin’) A. Smith can polarized listeners but he is in tune with the NBA and by paring him up with the underutilized and underrated Larry Hardesty I’m sure they would move the rating needle north.

When you think about it here we live in a city that is sports crazy with multiple teams in four major sports but we don’t have a decent sports talk radio station to listen to. Sad, don’t you think?

Lots of Mets news today to look at and I want get to it quick so I can read Howard Megdal’s new book “Wilpon’s Folly. Megdal has done what no other journalist s has attempted, he has conducted a full investigation into Wilpon’s involvement with Bernie Madoff and how December 11, 2008, the day Madoff was shown to be a world class thief and the worst day of Fred Wilpon’s life could rival the June 15, 1977 as the worst day in NY Mets history. After I finish reading “Wilpon’s Folly” I’ll have more on the book but if you are a Mets fan and want to know the TRUTH about Madoff and what the Wilpon’s knew and when they knew it and where all this will leave our beloved Mets, you really need to get this book.

Sandy Alderson has been named to International Talent Committee that was formed to study if MLB should institute a draft of International players. Just one step closer to the Commissioner’s office for Alderson

What’s this? The Mets are looking at dealing for Gio Gonzalez? It would be a feather in Alderson’s cap to pull this one off and if he feels parting with Jon Niese, Ike Davis and a minor leaguer or two is worth it, it still may not be enough to land Gonzalez.

Wayne Hagin, we hardly knew ye. Looks like Hagin’s days as Mets radio man are over. Hagin never clicked with the fan base because we Mets fans are very provincial when it comes to announcers. I’ve met Hagin a few times on the 7 train going back to the city after a Mets game and found him not only a gentleman but a great storyteller as well, but all that just didn’t translate into the radio booth during games. A great hire to join Howie Rose in the radio booth would be Boog Sciambi.

I’m a little late with this and I apologize as you need to check out Ed Marcus and Kerel Cooper’s video’s of Tuesdays Mets Christmas Party and the Q & A’s with Sandy Alderson, Justin Turner, Daniel Murphy and Jon Niese. Yes that’s me asking Alderson about the catching situation.

Every morning I check my e mail and Twitter hoping there is some kind of Mets news to read about and to discuss, today I’m hoping all is quiet on the Flushing Front because I am exhausted from yesterday even though I didn’t do a damn thing but watch TV.

One of the best features of having FiOS is the NFL Red Zone Channel. You get live cut ins of every NFL games without commercial interruption and when your team is playing on Sunday or Monday night, Red Zone is wonderful. I watched most of Patriots-Redskins (Tom Brady is totally frustrated that the Pat defense is so bad he has turned into an Arena Football League QB having to put up a zillion points to win a football game) and then switched over to Ch 5 to watch Tebow Time (I get that a lot of people are turned off by the religious zealotry of Tebow as people like that get on my nerves as well, but you have to put that aside when looking at this guy. The most over used phrase in sports in “he’s a winner” but the fact is Tebow is a winner. He’s won at every level of football he’s played including QBing two National Championship teams and he’s won a Heisman Trophy. I get that he is as inaccurate a passer as the local weatherman with a winter forecast but he does make big plays when it’s needed and his teammates believe he makes them and the team better. That’s all that counts. )

After all that I was still waiting for the main event of the evening, Giants-Cowboys. I was totally pissed off that this game wasn’t the 4PM FOX game as I wanted to watch the finale of Boardwalk Empire. I would have put up with the insufferable team of Joe Buck and Troy Akiman just to find out what happens to Nucky Thompson and Jimmy Darmondy. Giants-Cowboys took precedent over the illegal activities in Atlantic City.

As much as the Mets put me through the ringer, the angst they’ve given me over the last couple of season can’t compare to the love/hate I have for the NY Football Giants of the last couple of years.

I don’t think there is a player or coach on this Giants team I haven’t shouted profanities at my TV at this season? Head Coach Tom Coughlin annoys the living shit out of me with all his reactionary faces to every single play. No one gets more “YOU SHOULD BE FUCKING FIRED” rants than Offensive Coordinator Kevin Gilbride (a Jets fan buddy and I got into a heated discussion over lunch on whose team has the worst OC my Giants with Gilbride or his Jets with “That asshole Shotty”) I cannot stand Brandon Jacobs (not as much as a despised Jeremy Shockey and Palxico Burress when they were G-Men) and there are many times where Eli Manning goes from looking like Johnny Unitas and then like Dave Brown but I never curse at Eli, I like Eli a lot to the point I feel right now he’s the best quarterback in the history of the New York Giants. That brings me to last night’s Giants-Cowgirls game.

As I’m watching this game I went over in my head how much I hate the Dallas Cowgirls. Then I started thinking what opposing team of my favorite teams do I hate the most? I ran through all the teams I root for Mets, Giants, NY Rangers, Boston Celtics and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame and came up with this list:

Los Angeles Lakers

Philadelphia Flyers

Dallas Cowboys

Philadelphia Eagles

USC

Philadelphia Phillies

I put the Lakers first on the list because in this modern day of teams fraternizing and always hugging and laughing with each other, when the C’s meet up with the Fakers there is true unadulterated hate between them. These are the two greatest organizations in the history of the NBA and neither would piss on the other if they were on fire. I love that.

I guess it goes back to 1974 when the Flyers beat the Rangers in the playoffs and the whole Broad Street Bullies era took off. To this day Bobby Clarke is the opposing player I hate to most.

Still remember how upset my old man was after the Anthony Davis game when USC came back to beat Notre Dame that sealed the end of the Ara Paseghian era at South Bend.

Now when it comes to the Mets it’s hard to find a real rival. When the Mets were good in the 80’s the rivals were the Cubs, Pirates, Cardinals. Then it was the Braves and lately the Phillies but there has never been that one team with a long history of a rival with the Mets. I never looked at the Highlanders as a Mets rival but more of a neighbor I just ignore.

I was ready to bail from the Giants game right after the Tony Romo 50 yard TD pass to Dez Bryant that put the Cowgirls up 34-22 with like 4 minutes left in the game. I was thisclose to clicking the DVR for Boardwalk Empire but I was just to numb to change the channel. I just kept thinking “well, as bad as this loss is at least there will be a house cleaning of the coaching staff and the Chin will take over” next thing I see Eli marching his team down the field, shredding a Cowgirls secondary and going to TE Jake Ballard who looked like Gulliver to the Dallas Lilliput DB’s for a TD that brought the Giants to within 5 of the Cowgirls with just 3 minutes and change left in the game. Unfortunately the Giants had to go back on defense. I have no faith in the D which really really bothers me because the Giants have always been known for their D-Fence. Miraculously the D steps up at the most crucial time in this game, well mostly Jason Pierre-Paul and Chirs Canty did the steppin’ and the Cowgirls had to give Eli back the ball.

For all the hype that Tim Tebow gets, Eli Manning is becoming one the best QB’s in pressure situations in all of football. Manning would not disappoint leading the Giants to a game winning TD drive. Does K Gilbride ever get it through his head that Eli in the no-huddle is as good as brother Peyton in these situations? Give Eli the keys to the offense and sit back and look like a genius why don’t ya.

Of course even after the Jacobs TD this game wasn’t over not until JPP says it’s over with his huge block of a last minute Dallas attempt of a game winning field goal. The NY Football Giants are in 1st place in the NFC East and control their fate to get to the post season. All this happened in a matter of minutes.

PHEWWwwwwwwwwwwwww! I’m exhausted time to get to bed. Or so I thought. My wife tells me “you have to watch Boardwalk Empire, you won’t believe what happened” Aw shit, I’m now I have to sacrifice another hour of sleep. It was well worth it, I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen yet but HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT!

I don’t know if it’s the calm before the storm or a sign that the Mets will remain dormant in winter time news but there is absolutely nothing baseball wise coming out a of Flushing. I can get pushing the new uni and all the pomp and circumstance for this season 50th Anniversary but for the love of Casey Stengel is there any baseball news of substance coming from the front office?

Here’s what we’re stuck with today as “Mets news”

Lenny Dykstra fucked up his life and now is in rehab and when he gets out he will be a new man and yada yada yada. You know what, Frank Cashen should be given more credit than he ever has for when you look back at the Mets of the 80’s for all their on field success there were a lot of them who couldn’t handle the fame, fortune and everything that goes with it (I thank you all-Freddie Mercury) . With all the celebrations of the ’86 Mets maybe we should reflect more on this bunch as failures, who if they had any kind of self-control would have won multiple championships.

Adam Rubin writes about the Skill Sets asking for a non-jury trial when their case against the Madoff trustees goes to trial next March. The judge in the case however ruled in favor of Piccard so the case will be heard by a jury. I agree with Michael Kline who feels the Skill Sets will be hurt by a jury trial as this case is complex and a jury of 12 laypeople may not get the whole understanding of the facts to make a fair judgment. A jury trial will hurt the Skill Sets for sure.

It figures when the Mets have made it their mission statement to invest in the draft and in cultivating home grown talent that these new restrictive rules go into effect.

If we see Adam Lowden roaming the outfield of Citi Field in 2012, it won’t be a good sign.

Jose Reyes finished 11th in MVP voting, to me that does not translate into a 6yr/$120 mil player

Jerry Seinfeld just got a dog and he named him Jose after Jose Reyes, he’s a cute little dog but he’s no Shamsky. By the way why can’t celebrity Mets fans like Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Matthew Broderick, Ray Romano, Kevin James, Chris Rock to name a few form a syndicate and buy out the Skill Sets?

That’s it for today and until Friday unless Bernie Madoff sends Freddy Skill Sets a note from the big house on where he buried the missing millions he pilfered (I have a vision of the boardwalk at Brighton Beach as a starting point) and the Mets announce the signing of Reyes, Albert Pujols , Mark Buehrle and C.J. Wilson if not enjoy your Thanksgiving, put your worrying about the Mets on the back burner and look around the table at dinner and give thanks for those who are with you and remember those who aren’t.

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